I hope this is a help. I spent years in that position, eventually though, I did pluck up the courage to leave and start my own company. It was easy for me perhaps because I have no family. But the irony is that I have been working for myself now more than thirty years, some ups some downs. However within a year and a half of me leaving, the company I worked for was bought out and closed down, and there is now a housing estate where the offices and factory used to stand. The weekly pay cheque is no certainty.

So the only thing I lost was the handshake cheque, which would have been useful to a new business, but probably not as much as that eighteen months experience and growth.